Globalization demands more foreign-language study, not less

UNIVERSITIES and community colleges looking to trim foreign-language study to help balance budgets must beware of trading short-term relief for long-term headaches.

The University of Washington changed policy to allow students with three years of high-school foreign-language study to meet its undergraduate-language requirement, thus bypassing proficiency tests and introductory courses.

The move saves money, particularly for those students stuck in beginning French when they did not need it. But it has worrisome implications for the future. The changes push the onus for foreign-language proficiency down to high schools, where many foreign-language offerings are either nonexistent or lacking in rigor.

High-school graduates with strong foreign-language proficiency is the goal, but right now it is not automatic students with three years of high-school Japanese are at the same level as students who have completed one year in college.

No one expects foreign-language study to escape the budget cuts hitting higher education. But making this area take a bigger hit is unwise. Globalization demands proficiency in foreign languages, international studies and understanding other cultures.

Business and engineering courses are important, but so is guaranteeing students access to the Romantic languages or Urdu.

Seattle Central Community College is learning this lesson the hard way. The institution had planned to reduce up to 2,500 seats in first-year Spanish, Italian and French but a huge student outcry has forced college officials to back off some changes.

Cuts in foreign languages are counterintuitive in a post-9/11 world. In the wake of the terrorist attacks, colleges and universities saw a rise in the number of students interested in studying foreign languages and cultures. Enrollment has increased by 13 percent since 2002, according to The Modern Language Association of America, most dramatically in languages considered critical to America's security and economic future, such as Arabic and Chinese. Spanish remains the most popular language studied

Linguistic offerings are expensive, because they require smaller class sizes, but high demand ought to keep universities and colleges solidly in the game.